“Summer movie” is one of those phrases like “beach novel” or “toilet wine” that causes an immediate, involuntary adjustment of our expectations. (I was going to say “lowering of expectations,” but we make some mighty tasty toilet wine here at Screengrab headquarters.) When we hear “summer movie,” we think of explosions or aliens or exploding aliens, even though by Hollywood’s calendar, there is no time of year that isn’t appropriate for movies about exploding aliens. But by that same token, there are summer movies that feature hardly any exploding aliens at all. To kick off the season, the New York Times asked several motion picture luminaries to ruminate on their favorite summer movies, with surprising results.
Paradise director Michael Almereyda’s selection isn’t that far off the beaten path, aside from the fact that it was actually released in March. “A summery, in-between-jobs listlessness floated me into a weekday matinee of The Matrix 10 years ago. I wasn’t expecting much… There’s no way to summarize the plot without acknowledging its silliness or without then giving the writers/directors — the Wachowski brothers — their due for the precision and seductive power of every image, every scene, every gravity-defying action sequence. But the movie gathers true conviction and soul, I think, from the underrated performances of Mr. Reeves and his sorrowful, symmetrically hard-edged co-star, Carrie-Anne Moss.”
Lynn Shelton, director of the excellent indie Humpday, makes a more idiosyncratic choice. “How I yearned, during the summers I lived in New York, to just get out of that overheated, overanxious city every once in a while, to meander aimlessly along an esplanade in some quiet seaside spot, the gentle breeze ruffling the hair at the back of my neck. Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories provides the quintessential backdrop for a New Yorker’s escapist fantasies: a sleepy little film festival at the shore, where the besieged filmmaker Sandy Bates has been invited to attend a retrospective of his work. Although the soothing qualities of the place are not immediately accessible to our hero, once he does manage to give his swarming, rabid fans the slip, you can practically taste the salt in the air and hear the lapping of the waves in the middle distance.”
For more picks, including summer faves from Catherine O’Hara and Atom Egoyan, check out the Times feature here.